Order authorizing termination of certain life support systems

An elderly, severely brain-damaged patient was being ventilated and given nutrition and antibiotics intravenously in a medical center's critical care unit. Her legal guardian requested authorization to order that the respirator be withdrawn and the administration of nutrition and antibiotics be stopped. A Missouri circuit court ruled that, while public policy, as evidenced in the state's living will statute, permitted withdrawing the respirator, it apparently precluded withholding or withdrawing nutrition, hydration, or antibiotics.